Sushi Sauce Recipes

Lulu and I recently went to a Japanese sushi bar and enjoyed platters of delicious rolls. When I came home, I was determined to serve the same gorgeous-looking sushi for the family. I reinterpreted the caterpillar sushi with a combination of hoisin sauce and kaffir lime sauce. The caterpillar outer layer is imitated with thinly sliced avocados. Unlike most of the "fancy" sushi rolls you'll find at restaurants, this one's vegetarian.

I have to admit I was very proud of how they turned out. And to my surprise, it wasn't that complicated. Sometimes, improvisation ends up with beautiful results!

Don't forget to enter your name and email address to be able to participate in my Haute Potato Cookbook contest. I will pick one winner next Monday. And if you already have a copy, I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave a review on Amazon. Thank you!

We've been setting up my little sis-in-law’s school lunch menu as she's about to enter 1st grade tomorrow. She participated in the entire process. The little munchkin mentioned that she loves sushi and wanted to have some for lunch this school year. It's a fast and easy way for her to have a quick lunch, so I was happy to oblige. She also mentioned she loves baby octopus but she doesn't want to scare her friends away with weird food so I coarsely chopped them and used them as the filling along with other vegetables. I cooked each ingredient separately, let them cool completely and then combined then into sushi rolls. The sushi got an “A” from my sis-in-law, so I'll definitely be packing them for her this school year.

Involving children in preparing their own food encourages them to eat with more enthusiasm. Cooking in a fun environment is also a way to learn. If your kids aren’t adventurous enough for octopus, you can try some of my other school lunch recipe ideas.

Making sushi is a lot easier that it seems. The real key to well-presented sushi is having good utensils, such as a sushi mat and a sharp knife. Each ingredient can be prepped in advance and assembled when you're ready to serve, and when you make it at home, it's a fraction of the cost!

Though there are many wonderful forms of traditional makizushi, or rolled sushi, feel free to experiment with the ingredients you have on hand. I got my inspiration for the sushi pictured above from ingredients native to California; I used Hass avocados, goat cheese and baby Persian cucumbers. I wrapped these ingredients in the traditional combination of nori sheets and Japanese rice.

In standard California roll fashion, the rice is on the outside of the nori. If you've ever wondered why this is the case, the story goes that Japanese immigrants who came to the US turned the sushi inside out to hide the nori from culinarily unadventurous Americans. I don't know if that's true, but it's the story a sushi chef told me once. It certainly is a great tale!

I served the sushi rolls with wasabi paste, homemade pickled ginger and soy sauce. It may seem daunting, but a sushi dinner is really as easy as 1-2-3.